Sunday, March 27, 2016

Progressive bluegrass group the Rowans consisted of harmonizing brothers Peter (guitar, most members of the mandolin family), Lorin (guitar), and Chris (guitar, flute). All three grew up in the small Massachusetts town of Weyland, near Boston, and played rock and bluegrass music together. Peter played with several folk bands in the New England area, joined Bill Monroe's band for a time, then teamed up with mandolin virtuoso David Grisman in the folk-rock outfit Earth Opera during the late '60s and early '70s. Lorin and Chris, meanwhile, teamed up as the folk/pop/country-rock duo the Rowan Brothers in the early '70s. With Grisman in tow, they relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and scored a record deal with CBS, helped in part by an endorsement from Grisman's old cohort Jerry Garcia.

The Rowan Brothers' self-titled debut was released in 1972, with Grisman producing under the alias David Diadem, and they opened for the Grateful Dead. By 1975, brother Peter was between projects, and he joined his brothers as the renamed trio the Rowans. Their eponymous debut together was released on Asylum in 1975 and received highly positive reviews for its progressive, sometimes jazzy leanings and extended compositions. The 1976 follow-up, Sibling Rivalry, was equally acclaimed, but most critics agreed that 1977's Jubilations halted the trio's creative hot streak. They subsequently parted ways with Asylum and issued two more albums on the small Appaloosa label in 1980 before disbanding to pursue other projects. The Rowans reunited periodically for performances, particularly in the late '80s, and in 1994 (as Peter Rowan & the Rowan Brothers) recorded Tree on a Hill for the Sugar Hill roots label.

by Steve Huey

Joined by brother Peter and Chris Lorin Rowan signed with Asylum Records for their second outing, this time as the Rowans. Peter injects a bit more substance into the material, although it follows the same folk and country-rock leanings of its predecessor. Once again, Chris and Lorin offer a collection of sincere, tuneful, albeit slight songs, while Peter delivers three of the album's best cuts, including "Beggar in Bluejeans," "Thunder on the Mountain," and the near-classic "Midnight, Moonlight" (also released that same year as part of the great bluegrass project Old & in the Way and a few years later on his solo debut).

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

One thing you learn, sleuthing for obscure psychedelic music from the sixties, is that for every “White Rabbit” there is a “Night Sounds Loud.” And a “Crystal Forms.” And God knows how many other brilliant songs grown out of the same protoplasm, but forgotten to history. There is just no shortage of mind-exploding songs that have long ago slipped away into The Nothing – standout songs from bands less consistent, or just less lucky than Jefferson Airplane.

Even knowing that so much great overlooked music is out there, buried deep in record stacks and on YouTube, I was unprepared for “Introspection” by The End. Ironically, seeing that it was produced by Bill Wyman and engineered by Glyn Johns actually lowered my expectations. Let me explain. For an album with such a pedigree – produced by a Rolling Stone in 1968 – to have completely fallen between the cracks, it couldn’t actually be any good, or surely I’d have heard about it before now. Even the album cover is great – is that Charlie Watts’ eye?? It was just too good to be true, so it had to be lousy.

But it’s not lousy. In fact, it’s incredibly not lousy. Not just one or two of the songs, either – the whole album is a full-bodied technicolor blowout. Exquisite production, hooks galore and whiplash transitions. The album was set to come out on Decca (the Rolling Stones’ label) in 1968, and by all rights conquer the world. But, bafflingly, it was shelved for about a year. Which, in the music scene in the late sixties, might as well have been twenty. When Decca did finally release it, they put nothing behind it, and it sunk like a stone.

by Benjamin Wheelock

Although The End actually formed in 1965 some early groundwork was laid down beforehand. As 1964 progressed and Colin Giffin and Dave Brown became increasingly aware that song-writing had a future indeed, was possibly the future, they used their free time between The Innocents' touring and gig date; to start developing their own writing, often demoing their songs at the now-legendary R.G. Jones recording studio in Morden. The studio was something of a magnet for artists and groups all around south London and surrounding areas, such as The Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, PP Arnold and many others (Bill Wyman would later use the studio for sessions with The End).

Mr R.G. Jones himself was an avuncular figure endlessly enthusiastic and encouraging to the many young musicians and singers passing through on their way to who-knew-where. Many of the tracks recorded by Giffin and Brown have disappeared 'Another Time, Another Place', 'She's The One' for example, but may, hopefully, be hidden away in some dusty cupboard or attic somewhere but two titles are included in this compilation; 'I Want You Around and 'I Can't Believe It'. This writing partnership continued through The End years, augmented by productive collaborations with Nicky Graham and Terry Taylor.

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Hailing from California, they became one of the most popular bands in the area, playing regularly at Mr Lee's Swingin' Affair nightclub in West Covina to packed houses. The band's one and only album, featured 12 self-penned tracks of fuzz-led blues and psych.

Despite enjoying a minor level of success including supporting both the Shirelles and Big Joe Turner, the band called it a day in 1969, leaving this lone recording as their epitaph.

This extremely rare album has a strong mix of psychedelia, garage and folk sounds mid to late sixties, given the high musical standard and excellent recording quality, still stand up amazingly well today.

Friday, March 11, 2016

Contemporary music documentaries are saturated with exasperating stories just like Scott Fagan’s. Recent cultural excavations have yielded new knowledge about artists like Rodriguez, as examined in the release of Searching for Sugar Man. An entire generation of Cambodian psych-pop music eradicated by Pol Pot’s regime was exposed to audiences far and wide thanks in part to the documentary Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten. The examples go on and on, but the necessity of unearthing undiscovered gems from the past is as much an art form as the gems themselves. In fact, that’s pretty much the storyline for how Scott Fagan’s overlooked debut was introduced to the world.

Upon its release in 1968, South Atlantic Blues, for whatever confounding reasons, dropped like a brick commercially, despite Fagan’s uncanny pedigree. Upon arriving in New York from the Virgin Islands at 21, Fagan landed a successful audition with legendary producer Doc Pomus, gigged with some guy named Jimmy James (later known as Jimi Hendrix), unwittingly sired a literary indie-pop genius in Stephin Merritt (they did not meet in person until 2013), and almost became the first non-Beatle to be signed to the Fab Four’s revered Apple Records label (touche, James Taylor).

Suffice it to say that despite these forces of chaos, they did nothing to lift South Atlantic Blues to the masses, and the LP was pretty much forgotten about very soon after its release. Enter pop artist Jasper Johns, who came upon Fagan’s album in a cutout bin some years later and, bewitched by the strength and wonder of the songs etched into the groove of this discarded unknown, set to creating the pieces for the series “Scott Fagan Record,” which hang in the MET and MoMA today.

There’s a bit of a good luck that set Fagan’s record in the hands of the folks at Saint Cecilia Knows and Light in the Attic—both arbiters of high standard in the art of the reissue. The story of how Fagan’s debut was ignored and rediscovered at random by a respected and popular artist is incredible, no doubt. In a bit of cruel irony, it’s the record itself that’s more incredible, by far.

Beginning with “In My Head,” Fagan’s conscious vocals command attention, ruminating on the hazy inner dialogue of someone coming into his own not just as an artist, but as a man. Fagan sings, “The city street show cracks like a star so I wonder/why is it so strange to rearrange the clouds over and under myself?/and I have always seen the sea as secret lover/but does she want the sky instead?/Oh no; it’s something in my head.” String flourishes and tasteful guitars accentuate the propulsion of what sounds more Motown than sacred psych-folk (as this release is widely incorrectly ballyhooed as), which is one of the first indicators of the album’s otherness. Fagan’s powerful vocal takes are the next.

Belting high in the mix, Fagan’s raw vibrato warbles like Bowie’s but rambles like Reed’s, painting pictures in words not unlike those his son would excel at much later. And while not all Fagan’s lyrical musings can be described as entirely legible in addition to being literarily strong, his striking ability to have injected vignettes of angst into Bacharach-like horn-heavy groovers like “Crying” ought to have endeared him to an entire generation of Van Morrison-worshipping peaceniks.

Interestingly, “Nickels and Dimes” predates Morrison’s “Moondance” by two years, at least in terms of release, and pulses on the same Pink Panther-esque menagerie of sultry horns and suspicious melodies inspired by Caribbean sensibilities and R&B swagger. South Atlantic Blues utilized plunky keys, warm bass and barely-there percussion to guide songs to emerge both as ethereal aural maps as well as perfectly unobtrusive melodic foundations for Fagan’s fanciful crooning. “Nickels and Dimes” is the opus of a confused spirit, bemused by the calling of his talent even at age 21, when so much of the world had still yet to be discovered. Whether those discoveries were made in quite the way Fagan imagined is a question this record, sadly, probably never prophesied.

If it’s possible to listen to this album with the context of when it was released in mind, when the Donovans of the world were sipping champagne from velvet slippers and The Beatles were still together, try your hardest. The story is great, but it wouldn’t mean shit if this was a work of garbage, despite its rescue from such a fate at the hands of Johns.

After listening to South Atlantic Blues, the likely thought-route is to ponder the whereabouts of the thousands of staggeringly great pieces of music, art, literature just gathering dust in a bin somewhere, and who might be paying attention enough to pick them up. Luckily, this one was given a new life, and with it, a new testament to the staying power of rebellious, mischievous, talented songwriters.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Britain's Climax Blues Band didn't waste any time following up their self-titled debut in 1969 (dropping the moniker The Climax Chicago Blues Band), as they once again entered EMI's Abbey Road studios and put together Plays On, a highly adventurous and varied affair that saw plenty of new elements starting to creep into their once straight Chicago styled blues sound. The band had then slimmed down to a five-piece, consisting of Colin Cooper (vocals, sax, harmonica, bamboo whistle), Peter Haycock (guitars, vocals), Arthur Wood (keyboards), Derek Holt (bass, Mellotron), and George Newsome (drums). It was at this juncture that the band started to experiment with rock and jazz, and mixed with their already formidable blues chops the results on Plays On are quite spectacular. Esoteric Recordings continues on with the CBB reissues, giving this one stellar, crystal clear sound and another info packed booklet.

The album opens up with the lengthy jazz-fusion instrumental "Flight", a scorching piece highlighted by tasty interplay between all the players, especially Cooper's collection of reeds and Haycock's guitar. It must have been quite puzzling for fans of their blues soaked debut to pop on Plays On and hear this blast of awesome jazz to kick off the record. "Hey Baby, Everything's Gonna Be Alright, Yeh Yeh Yeh" sees the band returning to gritty blues, complete with scalding guitar solos from Haycock, but they go right back to jazz with a Latin flavor on the engaging "Cubano Chant", featuring some tight grooves, nimble piano, and some wild bamboo whistle lines from Cooper (who needs a flute, right?). On "Little Girl" the band add in some meaty rock riffs & organ to their blues base, another killer instrumental that also sees Cooper deliver some great sax melodies.

Wood tosses in the theme from '2001: A Space Odyssey" using organ, Moog, & Mellotron on the spooky, psychedelic piece ""Mum's the Word", a track for all the prog lovers to seek out, before the slide guitars from Haycock lead in the raunchy ragtime blues of "Twenty Past Two/Temptation Rag". Emotional, slow blues with yearning vocals can be heard on "So Many Roads", while the upbeat organ/guitar vehicle "City Ways" has plenty of swing and groove to it. The final tune on the album, "Crazy Bout My Baby" reminds of the material from the debut, and has a certain 'Peter Green era-Fleetwood Mac' feel to it.

Once again, Esoteric has unearthed some scorching bonus tracks here on this reissue; "Like Uncle Charlie" is a bluesy hard rocker complete with red-hot guitar licks from Haycock and an almost proggy middle section filled with sumptuous organ and layers of psychedelic vocals, and "Loving Machine" also sees the band rocking harder, driven by Haycock's stinging lead guitar."Dance of the Mountain King's Daughter" is another stab at jazz for the band, and has an almost Frank Zappa feel to it, but it's a shame the song isn't longer. There's also another mix of the Allman Brothers Band influenced "Flight" for good measure.

Though the band would go on to even greater heights with albums like Gold Plated, Flying the Flag, Sense of DIrection and others, Plays On is Climax Blues Band at their 'risk taking' best, as they basically said 'to hell with anything remotely commercial' and just went for it here. As such it's their most complex offering from a musical perspective, easily appealing to jazz-fusion, rock, prog rock, and blues fans alike. Incredible stuff!

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

After Flower Power and before punk, heavy, hard rock bands dominated the American music scene. In towns across the country, garage bands that had grown up taking drugs, flashing peace signs, and listening to the Beatles had witnessed the atrocities of Vietnam and Altamont, gaining a new perspective in a darker, crunchier, and more bombastic sound in their music. Bands like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Grand Funk Railroad, and Deep Purple were blasting out of muscle car windows, influencing a new generation of jaded musical amateurs.

Some of these ambitious groups earnestly composed some pretty far out jams. Playing hard and heavy just like the pros, these bands were on par with their heroes, albeit with a much smaller budget and inferior gear. The 45s these bands produced, mostly independently, were glorified demos given to record executives or sold for gas money. Generally speaking, a few hundred copies were sold direct to fans at local gigs outside of any kind of distribution. These pressings have since become highly sought after rarities and fetch serious coin when they are offered up for sale. Hence, the need to compile some of this material in a series we're calling Brown Acid.

The tunes compiled here come from a time that's been neglected in the compilation realm. The purgatory that lies between garage and punk has caused these gems to go overlooked by closed-minded collectors for far too long. Expand your mind, embrace the bad trip, and follow us down a two-lane highway into the abyss that is the American Rock'n'Roll Underground circa 1968-1979.